Not One Shovelful Of Coal

http://youtu.be/7ZGKwQK04dU

 

http://youtu.be/pa6HvMhsQfI

 

From a personal point of view, as a coal miner's daughter, it was a sad day.

 

They burned puppies instead though, so its not all good

 

That's positive news.

 

It's a shell game folks, coal doesn't "expire". As long as it's in the ground, it can be used. All that has been accomplished with this "War on Coal" is that the stuff is essentially in storage. But only in certain places. Other nations are still mining and burning as they always have. As western nations back away from coal they also back away from the very innovations we should be encouraging such as gasification and CO2 sequestration.

While there is no such thing as "clean" coal, there is no such thing as clean combustion either. Methane isn't clean, especially when it is burned with atmospheric air, which is primarily nitrogen. Anything that uses air to burn fuel is creating nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. The real shame is that we have made amazing strides with energy efficiency since the 70s. Light bulbs used to put out 80% heat and 20% light, now they're like 90% light and 10% heat. I've managed to cut the power and gas requirements of our home in half since 2002 (though oddly, the bills aren't quite 50% lower, thanks to steady taxes and "fees").

All I'm saying is that coal isn't gone. Don't celebrate its demise, it's just on hold. As we burn through oil and gas, largely as a result of population growth, we'll eventually be "forced" to return to old fashioned means and coal is one of them. Renewables could make a better impact but they have become political. The most obvious example of this is the sheer size of today's wind turbines. Why are they so massive? A better plan would be to put up millions of smaller ones even at the residential level.

BUT, we have an infrastructure that "needs" lots and lots of power plant workers and they need large rotating equipment to work on. (Yes, I'm speaking to unions, an old fashioned concept that has failed to modernize).

 

Ok, so that's where electricity comes from. Burning coal. I didn't know that. duh.. I'm so dumb.

 

Remembering the furor when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher closed the coal pits.

Do we owe her an apology?

 

If she'd done it for environmental reasons we might. But she didn't. It was done purely for political ends, mainly getting rid of of the Mineworker's union who had grown very powerful. Their strike brought down the previous conservative govt. under Ted Heath, and Maggie wanted revenge.

Still, be glad to see the end of coal.

 

Oh my God, NO!

Closing the pits was purely for her own gain.